


Lines

by Kahvi



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Consent Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:43:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5551214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lister didn't mean for anything to happen between him and Rimmer, but that's just an excuse, isn't it? Sometimes lines aren't so much crossed as... made unclear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lines

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Thin Line](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244463) by [LordValeryMimes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordValeryMimes/pseuds/LordValeryMimes). 



> With deepest apologies for putting that song in my readers heads.

Lister pressed himself further into the tight space between the storage crates and the drab prison wall, scooting back as far as his body would let him. His hands were over his ears, trying desperately to block all sound out, to no avail. How could a flimsy little speaker be so goiting _loud_?

_”...hey, hey, hey…”_

“Shut _up!_ ” Lister yelled, screwing his eyes shut as though that would make any difference one way or the other. He could still hear the song. That smegging song. 

_”...hey, hey, hey…”_

“What’s your problem,” asked a loud voice directly into his ear. Lister yelled and kicked instinctively in the direction of the sound, but as was immediately apparent, the owner of this particular voice had him cornered as far as instincts went. “You don’t like the song?” Cat grinned. He was wedged even further into the little hiding place Lister had found, his body contorted in ways mere human beings could only dream about. No wonder Lister had not seen him.

“I hate that song,” Lister muttered. “It’s smegging stupid.”

_”...hey, hey, hey…”_

“Songs aren’t stupid. Monkeys like you are stupid,” Cat concluded, licking his hand and using it to wash behind his ears.

“It’s a stupid song, OK?” Lister snapped. Cat shrugged, his interest in the conversation, the song, or indeed anything beyond his grooming regimen lost entirely. In a few minutes, he would have forgotten everything that had happened. Lister envied him.

_”...I know you want it…”_

Lister didn’t know which one of the grotty-faced prison guards had been given the privilege of a portable music player, nor which twonk had thought to give them permission to use a loudspeaker in a public area, but it was slowly grinding down the remainder of his already well-frayed nerves. At least it wasn’t quite so loud here, off in the far corner of the exercise yard, with cardboard and concrete to dull it further. As the music faded, and Cat’s quiet, meticulous tongue-laps grew more hypnotic than irritating, it finally got quiet enough for Lister to think again.

This was a mistake.

_Rimmer’s body, flush against the wall, fingernails in skin, the smell of over-chlorinated water._

Lister shook his head, crossing his arms and willing the memories away. Cat had slinked off somewhere, leaving him to his own misery. No use. He could block out the music, but he couldn’t block out what the music was reminding him of.

* * *

Thinking back, it was impossible to say just exactly how it had happened. Certainly, Lister had never _meant_ to force himself on Rimmer in the shower; it wasn’t the sort of thing you planned out. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ever seen himself doing. In fact, it was right up there with ‘find the entire crew of Red Dwarf resurrected and waiting for them’ on the list of things he would ever expect to happen. He just… wasn’t that sort of person. Except, evidently, he _was_. 

Fundamental to Lister’s sense of self was the idea that he was a _good person_. He might not always do the right thing, or the kind or proper thing, but he _tried_ and he wanted to. And there were some absolutes, some basic rules that he never, ever broke; some lines that he never crossed, for any reason: He was never cruel to animals, he never hurt innocent people on purpose, he never bullied, and he never, _ever_ , did anything sexual to anyone without their consent. And now he had. Hadn’t he? 

_“I was an equal participant in what just happened,”_ Rimmer’d said. _“I could have stopped things if I'd really wanted to,”_ he’s said, and yeah, fair enough, but the thing to remember about Rimmer, any Rimmer, was that Rimmer was an absolute twonk. Especially _this_ Rimmer.

This Rimmer didn’t look anything like what Lister couldn’t help but think of as _his_ Rimmer, which was odd, because he looked like _his_ Rimmer had when he’d first been revived as a hologram. That should make him look familiar, but all it did was remind Lister of who he wasn’t. _This_ Rimmer was leanly muscled and almost skinny, all sinews and wide eyes and twitching nerves. This Rimmer was nothing but a vaguely held-together collection of insecurities covered in prickling skin and frazzled hair, and just so disgustingly vulnerable that it made your stomach turn. In short, he was exactly the sort of person you should not goad into sucking your cock, which was probably exactly why Lister had. He’d done it because he could. 

_“I was an equal participant-”_ oh, smeg _off_. You couldn’t be an equal participant in something you didn’t fully understand. Yeah, so Rimmer was clearly gagging for it, Lister knew, having lived with the twonker for the better part of a decade, and he’d been so eager, hadn’t he, so very eager, so desperate he was practically drooling there, under the tepid stream of water. 

It was just _wrong_. And now he’d done it, no amount of keeping on doing it would help, because three or four wrongs did not make a right. Which meant hurting Rimmer, either way. Which made Lister a grade-A twonk.

* * *

It’d been _so good_ though. The water and the wet skin, and a half-forgotten memory of the two of them, much younger, avoiding one another’s eyes and bodies in Z-shifts communal showers. It was the body; this living Rimmer’s goited, ridiculously young body - it did double duty in driving home the fact of who he wasn’t, and dredging up old fantasies at the same time. Because yeah, it’d always been like this, hadn’t it? Rimmer and Lister, bickering bunkmates, circling one another like tomcats in an alley, neither one quite willing to pounce. At least, back when they were both alive, they could have just gotten drunk after and decided never to talk about it. 

_You’re both alive now_.

Well. That was a matter of definition, to Lister’s mind. He tried to force his thoughts away from Rimmer’s wet cock and wet eyes, on to more pressing matters like the fact that they were stuck in a prison with little chance of escape any time soon, then realized that only made things worse. Months; years, maybe, probably, in here with the living ghost of the man he loved. That he’d-

_”...I know you want it…”_

“SHUT THE SMEG UP!” Lister stood up too quickly, misjudging the distance to the metal crate above and behind him, and banging his head dramatically. At least, as his consciousness faded, so did the song.

* * *

“Don’t worry,” Rimmer’s sneering face informed him when the world swam back into focus, back in their steel-grey cell. “You’re going to be absolutely fine.” 

“Yeah,” Lister swallowed, absolutely unconvinced, “we’ll be fine. Absolutely fine.”

Rimmer threw him an angry look, but this, at least, was something merely familiar, and not agonizingly so. 

_”...hey, hey, hey,”_ the song echoed from the now far-away speaker, just on the threshold of hearing, and Lister, all things considered, found himself nodding along.


End file.
